Luna

Cheeseburger

I wish you would take just one more bite of my cheeseburger.
Like you always did.
no permission, no warning,
just love reaching across the table.
You never ordered chips of your own.
Mine became yours the moment the bag opened,
your hand sneaking in,
your smile pretending innocence.
“Quality control,” you’d say,
after the second handful.
As if the fate of the universe rested on my fries.
You built your burgers your way,
chips tucked inside,
too much sauce,
wrapper fighting for its life.
Messy, loud, completely you.
Grease on our fingers,
laughter spilling everywhere,
paper bags crackling like tiny fireworks on nights that didn’t feel important
until they became memories.
Now I still hear your voice—
soft, teasing, close.
And sometimes I pause before the last bite,
half-expecting your hand to appear,
stealing from me one lasttime…
my cheeseburger.

I reached for a sound today,
And found silence waiting for me.
Funny how silence can feel so loud,
The world keeps moving in bright colours,
Laughter spilling out of doorways,
Voices weaving themselves into belonging,
Names spoken easily,
Hands finding hands without searching.
And somewhere, just outside the circle,
A quiet space remains.
Time is a strange collector,
It lets you keep the weight of things,
but steals their edges.
A voice becomes an echo,
A moment becomes a shadow,
A name becomes a feeling you can't quite hold,
only recognise when it passes through you.
Sometimes I wonder, where forgotten sounds go.
Do they dissolve into the air?
Do they settle into walls?
Do they drift somewhere soft, distant,
Waiting for someone who remembers how to listen.
If a memory fades gently enough,
Does it disappear,
Or does it change shape?
And if no one calls you back,
do you become quieter,
or just harder to hear?
#Poetry #poems #amwriting

This poem has also been posted by my other account, @tired_and_wired@mastodon.au

1, 2, bottles.
4, 5, bottles.
Relief is the sound of bitumen under car tires.
The clink of change at the Gateway tolls.
7, 8, bottles.
The house shrinking in the rear view mirror.
Not gone, Just smaller.
10, 11, bottles.
Numb is staring out the window,
like you're not in your body.
13, 14, bottles.
Maybe other kids played swift slap.
Maybe some shouted punch buggy.
Maybe some played eye spy.
We played bottles.
16, 17, bottles.
A boring classroom maths game.
A little bit cringe. But it was ours.
A game I could play with my brothers.
19, 20, bottles.
22, 23, bottles.
25, 26, bottles.
Fun. Simple. Loud enough to fill the car.
Fun that distracted us while the kilometres grew,
and the house fell away behind.
28, 29, bottles.
On the way there, the game was loud.
31, 32, bottles.
On the way back, it softened. Careful.
Like holding the last piece of a weekend already ending.
34, 35, bottles.
Relief. Numb. Pretend. Watch. Dread.
37, 38, bottles.
Bottles was never about maths.
It was about passing time. About filling space.
About getting away, even if only for a while.
40, 41, bottles.
Sometimes we slipped. Sometimes we laughed.
Sometimes, for a moment, everything else went quiet.
But the car kept moving.
43, 44, bottles.
So, stranger, pick a table.
Keep the pattern. Wait for your turn.
And when the number lands on you, Say bottles.

Also posted to @tired_and_wired@mastodon.au
#Poetry #Poems #amwriting